During the last four years the residential construction industry has been plagued by a shortage of a trained work force that would be available to build our homes. Recognizing these needs, HBA officer and now past president, Craig Campbell reached out to 2016 Associate of the Year award winner to help us make an impact on solving the labor shortage. Over the past two years the HBA partnered with the Colorado Construction Institute to leverage the training funds available to train more construction labor for our work force. That led to the HBA focusing with the winner on labor issues and to begin to move the needle in solving this problem.

The Associate of the Year Award for 2016 goes to Michael Smith, founder of CCI.

Michael quickly became active in HBA activities and was appointed to the Board of Directors in 2016. Through Michael’s efforts the Trade Council was created within the HBA a year ago. Michael has served as the Council’s first chair and council founder. Michael has volunteered many hours to initiate the Council’s activities as well as his board commitment. Michael has also represented the HBA on labor issues with other advocacy groups and seeking to deal with the workforce issues.

It is our privilege to showcase a little more history on Michael’s career as we honor him as the Associate of the Year, 2016.

As founder of CCI, Michael recognized a need for construction education while building the Evergreen Lodge in Yosemite, California with underserved youth interns from the San Francisco Bay area. Over the next several years, Michael developed the concept for CCI and raised awareness within the education and construction industries.

In 2011, CCI founder Michael Smith partnered with Colorado Youth at Risk to implement a pilot project through the Home Builders Institute, providing career awareness in the construction trades for urban youth.

CCI partnered with the Youth Services division of the City of Denver's Office of Economic Development to launch a pilot academy model. He achieved 100% completion rate and made measurable success with high school dropout prevention. In June 2013, CCI received grant funding from The Piton Foundation, which enabled us to fully launch the carpentry program.

In 2014, the Department of Labor awarded CCI a $1.1 million grant to create its own YouthBuild program, Denver YouthBuild. This grant increased the training programs we offered and successfully brought academic achievement through GED and college classes into the program offerings. In 2014, CCI also became an approved training partner of Workforce Initiative Now (WIN), to prepare the next generation of workers for local transit infrastructure projects.

In 2015, CCI launched the Training Toolkit to share our construction training expertise with other schools and YouthBuild programs. He also brought CCI training programs into numerous local high schools with the Building Pathways program to get more youth involved in the trades. A major accomplishment. Congratulations Michael!